Friday, December 9, 2011

The New Girl in Town

Hi! My name is Devereaux Sinclair and I live in Shadow Bend, Missouri. It’s a small town about an hour away from Kansas City where I used to work in the investment business. But then my grandmother, Birdie Sinclair, starting having some memory problems and her doctors told me I needed to be around more. And since Gran had dropped everything to take care of me when my parents deserted me, I felt that I had no choice but to return the favor.

So I quit my job at Stramp Investments and bought the old dime store in town. I have to admit that I don’t miss the commute or the stress, but going from a six-figure salary to a barely- making-it income is a bit of an adjustment. I used all my savings and sold off nearly everything I owned (okay, not my sapphire black BMW Z4) to buy, renovate, and stock Devereaux’s Dime Store and Gift Baskets.

Unfortunately, as I was getting my new business off the ground, my old boss was arrested. Turns out, his entire investment company was a huge Ponzi scheme. Everyone thought I had been in on the fraud, which I wasn’t. But I can understand their suspicions. How in the world had I not known that Mr. Stramp was cheating our clients?

Then, just as that scandal was dying down, the contents of a gift basket I had made for my ex-boyfriend’s fiancée (one of the erotic baskets) was used to murder her. Now not only am I the subject of gossip again, but the detective on the case has me pegged as the killer. And since he was one of the many municipal employees that Mr. Stramp defrauded out of their pension funds, the detective is determined to pin the homicide on me.

Still, one good thing did come out of all this. A hot U.S. Marshal on medical leave from the service has volunteered to help me investigate. And whoadoggie do we have chemistry. I haven’t felt this way about a guy since I was sixteen. Of course, that does make it a tad difficult to concentrate on the fact that if we don’t find out the real killer’s identity, I’m going to end up in the prison cell next to my father.

--Little Shop of Homicide, the first in the Devereaux’s Dime Store mysteries by New York Times bestselling author Denise Swanson debuts March 6, 2012.

Liz--Gran is always a hoot, even whens he makes me go to bingo with her.Dru--The whole situation with my dad is just too upsetting to talk about right now. But he claims he was innocent.Janet--You would not believe how distracting that man is!

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We are the characters--major and minor--who inhabit the pages of some of your favorite cozy mysteries.We're coming out from between the covers and welcoming you into our lives.So grab a nice cuppa, settle in, and learn what happens when our authors aren't looking.